In 1272 in the Compendium Studii Philosophiae Bacon lays bare the failings of “the two orders” as if he belonged to neither, but he then proceeds to refute indignantly those masters at Paris who have tried to argue that the state of the higher secular clergy, such as bishops, is more perfect than that of the religious.[2066]
His reported condemnation.
In 1277, however, we learn “solely on the very contestable authority of the Chronicle of the XXIV Generals,”[2067] a work written about 1370, although containing earlier matter,[2068] that at the suggestion of many friars the teaching of “Friar Roger Bacon of England, master of sacred theology,” was condemned as containing “some suspected novelties,” that Roger was sentenced to prison, and that the pope was asked to help to suppress the dangerous doctrines in question. It has been a favorite conjecture of students of Bacon that he incurred this condemnation by his leanings toward astrology and magic; but, as we shall see later, his views on these subjects were not novelties. He shared them with Albertus Magnus and other contemporaries, and there seems no good reason why they should have got him into trouble. Suffice it here to note that the wording of the chronicle suggests nothing of the sort, but rather some details of doctrine, whereas had Bacon been charged with magic, we may be pretty sure that so sensational a feature would not have passed unmentioned.
Franciscans and science: John Peckham.
How absurd it is to think that the Franciscan Order was opposed to Bacon’s pursuit of natural and experimental science, or that he was alone among the members of that order in the pursuit of such subjects, may be inferred from a glance at the career of John Peckham who from 1279 to his death in 1292 was archbishop of Canterbury.[2069] According to a letter of Bacon’s favorite, Adam Marsh, Peckham entered the Franciscan Order about 1250. He had been educated in France but about 1270 became lector of his order at Oxford. He also became the ninth provincial minister of the Franciscans in England, and had been called to Rome by the pope to be Lector sacri palatii before his nomination by the pope to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Yet this Franciscan who rose so high in the church was the author of a treatise on Perspective, one of the five subjects which Bacon held could be of such service to the church and yet were being so woefully neglected. In his Perspectiva communis, which was printed at Venice in 1504, Peckham talks of such matters as the reflection of visible rays and experiment. A work on the sphere and a Theory of the Planets which exists only in manuscript are also attributed to him. It has even been suggested that he was the bright lad John whom Bacon sent to explain his work to the pope, but Peckham was evidently too old in 1267 to fill that rôle. Bartholomew of England was another Franciscan interested, as we have seen, both in natural science and astrology, and other Friar Preachers than Albertus Magnus and Aquinas showed the same interest.
Was Bacon still writing in 1292?
This is about all that we know of Bacon’s life except the dates of one or two more of his works. Mr. Little regards it as “certain that Roger’s last dated work was written in 1292.”[2070] This was his treatise on the study of theology, which in one passage gives the year as 1292 and in another speaks of “forty years and more” as having elapsed since 1250.[2071] It is rather surprising to find his literary activity continuing so late, since in 1267 he wrote as if well along in life.
II. His Criticism of and Part in Medieval Learning
Aims and plan of the Opus Maius.
We turn from Bacon’s life to his writings, and shall center our attention upon his three works to the pope. In them he had his greatest opportunity and did his best work both in style and substance. They embody most of his ideas and knowledge. Much, for example, of the celebrated “Epistle concerning the secret works of art and nature and the nullity of magic” sounds like a later compilation from these three works.[2072] Two of them are merely supplementary to the Opus Maius and are parallel to it in aims, plan, and contents. Its two chief aims were to demonstrate the practical utility of “philosophy,” especially to the Church, and secondly, to reform the present state of learning according to Bacon’s idea of the relative importance of the sciences. Having convinced himself that an exhaustive work on philosophy was not yet possible, Roger substituted this introductory treatise, outlining the paths along which future study and investigation should go. Of the thirty divisions of philosophy he considers only the five which he deems the most important and essential, namely, the languages, “mathematics,” perspective or optic, “experimental science” (including alchemy), and moral philosophy, which last he regards as “the noblest” and “the mistress of them all.”[2073] Treated in this order, these “sciences” form the themes of the last five of the seven sections of the Opus Maius. Inasmuch as Roger regarded himself as a reformer of the state of learning, he prefixed a first part on the causes of human error to justify his divergence from the views of the multitude. His second section develops his ideas as to the relations of “philosophy” and theology.